This invention relates to an animal skinning apparatus for skinning hogs, steers and other animals.
This apparatus will be described as being used to handle hogs. It should be understood, however, that this particular use of the apparatus is intended to be purely illustrative and not limiting in nature.
In one type of animal skinning apparatus known in the art, the body of a hog supported by the roller table has its skin gripped by a set of grippers at a straight cut made in the body longitudinally thereof (in a direction in which the spinal column extends), the set of grippers being mounted on the periphery of a drum, and a cutter is moved to a position in which it is disposed near and along the straight cut to strip the skin from the body of the hog as the drum is rotated to pull the skin and cause the body to rotate about the longitudinal axis thereof. When this type of apparatus is used, the stripped skin is wound around the drum, and the skin wound around the drum drops onto the skin collecting section disposed below the drum as the grippers are moved to their open position when the drum has made substantially one complete revolution.
Some disadvantages are associated with this type of skinning apparatus of the prior art. Since the apparatus are constructed such that the drum must be rotated in a reverse direction to return it to its original position after making substantially one complete revolution in the skin stripping step. This places limitations on the rate at which the stripping operation is performed. The forward end of the cutter must be disposed near the point of contact between a circle formed by the body of the hog and a circle formed by the drum when the relative positions of the hog body and the drum are seen in a transverse cross-section. The region of the apparatus near this point of contact is so narrow that it is impossible to effect adjustments of the position of the cutter such that the cutter can advantageously perform a stripping operation. The result of this is that the skin gripped at the cut relative to the body cannot be stripped by the cutter in a state in which the skin is pulled by a sufficiently high tensile force. Moreover, the apparatus of the prior art lack in precautions for the safety of the operator during operation.
In animal skinning apparatus of the prior art known in the art, the cutter is disposed in contact with the outer periphery of the body of an animal and arranged parallel to the longitudinal axis of the animal body. The cutting edge of the cutter is disposed between the skin and the flesh of the body. The cutting edge is sharp and this often causes the skin stripped from the body to become too large or uneven in thickness in case the tensile force exerted on the skin along its width is not uniform. Sometimes the skin is torn up before it is completely stripped.